Foreign Policy
Imagine your child goes to school everyday and there is the looming threat of nuclear weapons terrorizing the country, that is what it was like during the ninteen sixties. The cold war was in full throttle and the Soviet Union alongside its communist partners were promising to bring a rain of fire across the country. We now know that this never happened but at the time people were scared and the threat was real. Take a look at some of the events that had the nation so scared. Cuban Missile Crisis With the looming threat of nuclear war with our Soviet frends the US was taking a drastic stance against a mass death in highly populated cities more countries were falling to the red scare. One of the newest countries to become a communist nation was Cuba and it was being led by the tyrarranical dictator Fidel Castro who had embraced the communist government with open arms. Cuba was now an ally to the USSR and our president at the time John Fitzgerald Kennedy was not at all happy. This "rivalry", would escalate even further as Soviet Russia was putting Cuba up to no good and soon the United States would be nearly brought to its knees as soon as Cuba began holding nuclear warheads, 110 miles off of the shore of Florida. Bay of Pigs The bay of pigs was a failed military operation on the coast of southwestern Cuba on April 17, 1961 in order to achieve a military revolution in the newfound communist nation. The commander of the front was John F. Kennedy as he was serving as president against the dictator Fidel Castro who was not planning on giving up his power. Vietnam The citizens of the United States showed the most oppostition for the Vietnam war than any other in history, during this time the "flower child", movement was picking up steam as even former veterans were anti-involvement to this predicament. The new South Vietnamese leader Diem proved that he was a terrible leader and had ideals that he did not warn top US officials about prior to his inaguration as dictator he would soon prove to be a thorn in the side of the country as a communist ruler. The Middle East The newly founded Middle Eastern nation of Israel proved itself a worthy adversary as it enacted a counter-offensive against the united Arab States. What does Israel have to do with US foreign Policy? Well Israel was created in the first place when the United States gave the remaining Jewish people after the Holocaust a large piece of land with contained the Holy CIty Jeruselum which angered the Islamic people who had held the land since the crusades during the middle ages. Egypt and other Islamic states soon began mobilizing troops and weapons to the borders. Israel retaliated in an offensive that would began and end a war in a matter of six days, this proved that even the smallest of nations can have massive amounts of strength. The Final Frontier In 1969 the US accomplished "one giant leap for mankind", as soon as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped foot on the infinitely far away satelite that orbits the earth, the moon. This was the final step in the US and USSR's space race, and seemingly endless rivalry. For the most part the so called "space race", was being constantly led by the Soviet Union but on July 21, 1969 the Americans won the race. It also proved that there was no organic life on the lunar surface thus proving that there was indeed a surface in our solar system where Americans were not hated. By; ED